Metamorphosis (Ep 1.10)

Now, this was a book very easy to finish! Thin and simple, and existentialist, just the way I like it.

Franz Kafka is mentioned several times in Gilmore Girls (I guess it is bound to be, with ambiguity and surrealism the favourite pastimes of the Girls). I had seen Kafka's birth home in Prague from the outside and wondered what the heck the long queue was for. With the Girls constantly praising him, I figured it was time to read a Kafka.

Kafka is mentioned at least thrice in Gilmore Girls, with Metamorphosis mentioned in Forgiveness and Stuff in season 1, the Trial in season 4 and Kafka himself mentioned in season 3 during Jess and Paris' famous argument.

In ep 1.10, Rory had just started dating Dean and buys him the book as a gift.
Rory: ... a book for Dean,
Lane: You got Dean a book?
Rory: Yeah, Metamorphosis.
Lane: Metamorphosis!?
Rory: It's Kafka.
Lane: Very romantic.

I am not surprised that Lane is surprised and thinks she should just buy a girlie gift like something that says "I dig you, baby". But then Rory is, well, Rory.

Metamorphosis is the story of how the hero, Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman and sole earner for the family, wakes up to find himself turned into a monstrous insect (I visualised it to be a cockroach for some reason) and how he is suddenly ostracised from society and his "loving" family. It is simply the plight of the human life. I loved the concept and adored the simplicity of the language. I am sure some charm was lost in translation (it was originally written in German), but you can still see how simple and logical Kafka's thoughts were. The existentialist crisis is something we all live with (but refuse to talk about) and it was nice to see it represented in a simple manner across the pages of a famous short story. Recommended for anyone who has been scared by the term Kafkaesque - it's not as scary as it sounds!

Franny and Zooey (Ep 2.15)

LORELAI: Hey.
JESS: Hey.
LORELAI: Did you get lost?
JESS: No, I was looking at Rory’s books.
LORELAI: Uh huh.
JESS: I wanted to see if she had Franny and Zooey. She does.
LORELAI: Okay.
JESS: I was gonna get it for her if she didn’t.

Well, that's what Jess says when he is caught coming out of Rory's room (when she's not around, doubters!) after having returned her bracelet in Lost and Found (which he had stolen, or saved as a keepsake, depending on your own version of Jess' character - I like to believe the latter).

It is interesting that he brings up the book Franny and Zooey out of nowhere. Maybe because he considers himself as superior and other-wordly as Zooey? Or because he thinks Rory resembles Franny in that she is beautiful, gentle, yet sassy?

The book is a collection of two short stories by JD Salinger ("Franny" and "Zooey", duh) that were published in the 50's in New Yorker. Franny is a young woman out on a date with an egoistic student, but constantly analysing religious commitments and life motivations. She ends up having a nervous breakdown, and the latter book picks up from that point with Franny's brother Zooey leading the narrative. He, like Franny, considers himself unique and superior in a world full of common folk with common ambitions, and is thus unable to do any work to satisfaction. He considers himself "unsocial" with no ability or interest in having a normal conversation with those around him.

Perhaps Jess identifies with that?

What impressed me the most about the book, though, is the tremendously detailed knowledge of Eastern philosophy that Salinger has. He treats Sankaracharya like a best friend, and the philosophies of karma from Bhagavad Gita as his work ideologies. Epictetus, De Caussade and Zen monks appear in the book as well - but I somehow would not attribute Rory and Jess' interests in the book to the religious philosophical side of the book - we have never seen that in the rest of Gilmore Girls, have we?